For those of you wondering how Channing Tatum had spent his early years of young adulthood, Magic Mike translates that era into a movie. Although his experiences are those the character of Alex Pettyfer goes through, the story in this film captures the ups and downs of Tatum’s stripping life and its environment.

Even though it is a movie that many probably didn’t watch because it looked like a strip film from the outside –evidence #1, the poster-, there is more than meets the eye.

First of all, let’s take a deeper look and check the director’s name: Steven Soderbergh. Just by knowing a little bit about films made in the past 15 years, we can tell that he is not going to direct a male version of Showgirls -which I haven’t seen, I don’t want to go to hell-. Instead, the plot revolves around these particular characters, and how life treats them.

They just happen to work at a male strip club.

At some points, the movie takes some directions that make Channing Tatum –unsurprisingly, also producer of this film- stand out as a promising actor, showing how he can also do drama without hesitating. There aren’t many Will Smith-type actors out there -who can be good at drama and action films at the same level-, and 33 year old Tatum is one of the few who can become a Will Smith -although the Prince is IRREPLACEABLE.

And the other actors are also worthy of mention. Matthew McConaughey is the other big one in Magic Mike, playing the role of a veteran in this job and the one who runs the business. He even won some awards, the most important being the Independent Spirit Award, which proves that he is able to do deep films, and not just light comedies in the style of How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days -although I am a girl, I love that film.

Pettyfer is maybe the not-so-outstanding one, even though he carries the weight of playing the character that is supposed to be inspired by Tatum’s own life. But it has to be pointed out that the Brit is the least experienced within the cast.

The other actors do not have much material to work with, because the dramatic parts belong to the other three, so most of their scenes take place at the strip club. The White Collar so-handsome-it-hurts-to-look-at-him star Matt Bomer and True Blood‘s wolf Joe Manganiello are the most notable ones.

The only flaw is the lead actress, Cody Horn, who plays Pettyfer’s big sister. Maybe she had to be hired because she is the daughter of the then Warner Bros. president Alan Horn, but I doubt Tatum was happy having her in the film. She is a really bad actress with no screen presence nor facial expression. Sort of like Kristen Stewart -this generation’s Winona Ryder.

In conclusion, the typical thing that a film critic would say is that Magic Mike is “about men stripping not only their bodies, but also their souls”, blah blah blah. All right, that is actually true, but there is more to it than the traditional boring view. It is worth it. As simple as that.